Paleontologists have figured out what turned out to people the catastrophic eruption of ancient SUPERVOLCANO

Paleontologists have figured out what turned out to people the catastrophic eruption of ancient SUPERVOLCANO

13.03.2018

Experts from Arizona state University in Tempe checked the assumption that about 75 thousand years ago the eruption of the Toba SUPERVOLCANO nearly destroyed humanity. As shown by their study, the tribes of the ancient people who lived in southern Africa, in fact he was almost not affected.

photo: pixabay.com

Under increasingly subject to doubt, but still popular version, SUPERVOLCANO eruption of Toba led to the occurrence of a “volcanic winter” on the planet — the dust has covered the sky, bringing the first plants is no longer enough light, and then animal food. According to this version, people could suffer as directly from the eruption, and from its indirect effects, so that their number decreased on the order of about ten thousand people.

In the new study, experts analyzed the traces of volcanic ashes, which, according to the characteristic compounds of potassium and silicon appeared on the surface of the Earth during the super eruption of Toba. After that, the researchers compared the remains and tools that existed before and after the eruption, and came to the conclusion that the life of ancient people who lived in Africa, and their number SUPERVOLCANO fundamentally not affected.

Recently, against the version that the eruption of the Toba SUPERVOLCANO nearly destroyed humanity, was made by another group of researchers. Experts from the University of Arizona, has compared the remains of plants that grew during the century before and two centuries after the eruption, and found between them a fundamental difference. In all likelihood, this means that the eruption did not lead to the occurrence of a “volcanic winter”.

Anyway, even if until now mankind has not been under threat of destruction due to volcanoes, some researchers do not exclude that this could happen in the future. Moreover, such a scenario experts from the American space Agency NASA, is considered more probable than the fall of a giant asteroid, the beginning of a Third world war and other potential catastrophe on a global scale.

Get short formal newsletter the best in the “MK” – subscribe to our Telegram.